Nick: I was walking out, and I was talking to Josh Kendall, who’s a very good reporter, works at The State, covers South Carolina, and I said, “Josh, that looked familiar.” Punt, punt, punt, punt. The audio is not messed up. I’m reading South Carolina’s drive chart. Fumble, punt, end of half. Punt, punt, interception, and then it got weird with a touchdown, and then turnover on downs. That is a Will Muschamp offensive drive chart if I’ve ever seen one.

Andrew: Yeah. To be fair, the touchdown came against basically all of second and third team.

Nick: Yeah. I think South Carolina had like 141 of their total offensive yards, they put up 256, and I think like 150 of them were on the last two drives.

Andrew: Yeah.

Nick: That’s when people are out, people are hurt. You’re playing second team.

Andrew: To go on to this, I said on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday Florida needed a spark on offense, and I said they needed to come out with a fire under them. I said this to you right before the game started, I think, I said, “They looked like there was more energy.” Remember that conversation?

Nick: Yes.

Andrew: It did. It seemed like there was more energy. Appleby hit the zone read, and then it seemed like there’s that spark. The offense only scores 20 points, but when you’re at halftime, and it’s 14-0, I think you and I both looked at each other and was like, “This game should be 28-0. It feels like a blowout.” That’s exactly how it was. Had it not been for…

Nick: Turnovers.

Andrew: Turnovers and then just a dropped pass by, was it C’yontai? On 3rd down, they get a 1st down, they keep moving. They score. It’s 35, 42 to nothing. That’s the way it was. It was a much better job by the offense, and props to, and you’re going to hear me say it, the offensive line. The offensive line that was banged up, TJ McCoy and Kavaris Harkless played pretty well. You didn’t hear their name called, so that’s a good thing.

Nick: What would you have said if on Friday’s podcast I had told you, Tyler Jordan’s going down, not going to return. David Sharpe’s going down, not going to return. So you’re going to be turning to, when I tweeted, “TJ McCoy is in,” I don’t think the reaction was sarcastic, but I had about 10 tweets saying, “Who?” That’s where Florida was. Florida is on their third string center, and had to move Martez Ivey out to left tackle and bring in Kavaris Harkless to play left guard. If I would have told you that was the scenario, what would you have said is going to happen on Saturday?

Andrew: I’m going to give you my honest take, and I think when I tell you this you’re going to actually believe me. I would said, “I want to see Martez at left tackle.” I do. I’m sick of watching 78. I’m tired of it. I don’t think McCoy’s a bad player. I think McCoy is, and I’m going to go down this line, and it’s going to be a line that I think someone’s going to probably use against me, but I’m going to use it. It is that typical Alabama center where you don’t know his name. You just know that he’s a staple there. He is Cam Dillard 2.0, and I say that in that he’s maybe not going to be great. He’s not going to do anything great. He’s just always going to be solid. I think that’s what McCoy is.

You see McCoy, I told you one play, it was the Scarlett run that got them down to the 5, and then Appleby fumbled the snap. McCoy and Jawaan Taylor both split a gap that a trailer truck could have went through. It was that big. Harkless was a tossup in my opinion. I think he’s better inside than he is outside. He can’t handle the speed rush. So I would have been worried about Harkless, not worried about Ivey and not worried about McCoy.

Nick: Okay. I would have said, “Disaster!” Disaster. That’s what I would have said.

Andrew: Right. I mean, props to the guys, though.

Nick: Yeah. No, they did their damn thing.

Andrew: 171 rushing, and that’s taking away from…

Nick: 171, I mean, there’s 11 yards in negative team rushing from kneeling and from sacks.

Andrew: Right.

Nick: Brandon Powell’s one little sweep, that went for negative 8.

Andrew: That should have went for 80.

Nick: Yeah. Mark Thompson got a ball, which he promptly fumbled and lost two yards on. So there’s right there 21 yards. Florida ran the ball for, with Perine, Cronk, Appleby and Scarlett, ran the ball for almost 200 yards.

Andrew: I want to hit on two things real quick. You want to hit the positive or the negative first? Hit the negative, then end it with a positive?

Nick: There you go.

Andrew: Mark Thompson, I don’t even need to say anything else. He is what he is. He is what he is. He’s not an SEC football player. He has fumble issues. He has this issue. He has this issue. He has this issue. He got one carry, and then he played in the back pocket of running backs coach Tim Skipper the rest of the day.

Andrew: Don’t move. You’re not costing me my job, buddy. You’re not costing me my job, buddy. I got a couple workhorses that can go. I think, as far as the positive goes, Scarlett is that guy that we’ve been saying. Him and Perine should share the carries every week. Whoever has the hot hand, feed them. Feed them often. Let them go. Scarlett was the hot hand, 20 carries 134 yards. Feed him. No problem with that at all. Great for him.

Appleby though, I loved seeing the zone read. I loved seeing the different things that they did with Appleby, because, to me that just shows that as much criticism as this staff gets, they know what Appleby can and can’t do. They did it effectively. He threw the ball really well, 17 and 21 for 201. You sit here, and you think, okay, 201, that’s not good. Hey, it got you a win, and he looked pretty good. They didn’t throw the deep ball, and I think that was maybe on purpose. They didn’t need to.

Nick: Yeah. I don’t think, we saw the stand pass though, and they screened, and they got creative. There was motion again. There was screens to receivers, screens to running backs. There was crossing patterns. Guys were open. Appleby, I think the interception, the tip ball, I think he forced that. Not really on him, because the ball gets tipped and picked. Don’t know what his deal is with fumbling the snap when he’s in the red zone. Had that issue at Vanderbilt. Almost cost you there. Definitely cost you points this week. I think he had a good game overall.

Andrew: I think it’s more about him just trying to get out and trying to make a play happen quick. That make sense?

Nick: That makes sense. It’s kind of like trying to catch the ball, or trying to run before you catch the ball, which is what Antonio Callaway did when he dropped a 3rd down.

Andrew: Yeah. I just think that he is doing it, and he’s trying to, he’s just trying to make plays, and you can never fault him for that. I’ll say this. He’s a leader. He’s more of a leader than I thought he was. I seen him a couple times get in a couple guys face, and get things going. So I was glad to see that as well. Tough. Man, I didn’t realize how tough he was. There was a few times I’m like, maybe you should step out of bounds, big guy. He’s lowering his shoulder and taking a hit.

Nick: I asked Jordan Scarlett about that, and Scarlett said, “We told him we need that hand. Don’t be throwing that stiff arm. We’re going to need that hand, buddy. So maybe just run out of bounds.” He’s a big kid. He’s 230, 240 pounds.

Andrew: Yeah. That’s it. Couple things too, Nuss, are you listening to this podcast? I know you are, because you threw the stand pass a few times.

Nick: It worked. It was beautiful.

Andrew: Keep doing it.

Nick: It’s a quick 5, 6 yards.

Andrew: Yes. I think, I looked at you one time, and I said, “You can tell that Appleby is checking to it, because they were 7 yards off the ball, and it was like, I’m just going to throw it.” They threw it to Hammond a couple times. Threw it to Callaway. That get the ball to the playmaker was there. Nick, tight ends are back. C’yontai Lewis is back. That’s what? Three straight great games for him? I mean, the Arkansas game he didn’t do much, but he still was there.

Nick: Are we saying great?

Andrew: Okay. Great is maybe the wrong word. Good games.

Nick: Caught another touchdown.

Andrew: We expected C’yontai to do this all year. If you look at the stats sheet, four catches, 38 yards, and a touchdown. If you’d have told me he would do that, if the beginning of the year if you’d have told me, “Tell me how many catches C’yontai should get a game.” I would say, “3-5.”

Nick: Yeah. Okay. So he had a very good game against Georgia. The touchdown, has an incredible catch, and then he scores. Then he only had 1 for 17 against Arkansas. I think that one came early. I think he kind of disappeared after that, and then yesterday, great game, four, 38, that early score on the 1st drive. Florida’s only scored on the opening drive twice this season, at Tennessee and yesterday. Both with Austin Appleby at quarterback.

Andrew: Yup. Well, Nick, it’s kind of gotten to the point where football right now you’ve got to run the zone read. I mean, it is what it is. You’ve got to run some kind of zone read, misdirection, with your quarterback. It doesn’t take a fast guy, because 90% of the time when you’re running the zone read it’s because the D, I mean when you’re running the zone read period, if it’s a true read, then if the quarterback keeps it he should have yards to run for, because that’s mean the end pinched down inside and took the back. If it’s just a planned keep, then that’s when you could be into problems, but you see Appleby, and he ran for 25 yards before he was even touched on one play.

Nick: I even asked you about that, remember? I said, we were trying to watch the replay, and I said, “I wonder if this is a zone read, or if that was a designed quarterback run.” It was on the 33, 30 yard run.

Andrew: I think you and I both agreed that it looked like he read it, because he put it in, and he did a great job. I think it was him and Lamical actually on that play, and they both did a great job of selling it. Lamical kept his arms in, took the read. Appleby really stuck it in there, and made it seem like he was going to give it, before he took it back out and then was gone. It was really good.

Nick: Sold it. Sold it perfectly, and that two guys, not just the quarterback. It takes the running back and the quarterback.

Andrew: Yeah. Then it was really good blocking outside. Another thing I wanted to hit on too is they set that reverse up to Powell, and had Powell kept his foot, we’re talking six, because he was outrunning one guy, and then there was nobody but green grass ahead of him on the other side.

Nick: I think he definitely, Austin Appleby definitely provided a spark, and it started, kind of like we said, it started that first drive. Getting a score on that first drive, getting the stadium loud, it was empty when that first score happened, but the stadium did fill in. Getting that was so important for Florida. It’s an offense that had to hear that they sucked for weeks, had to hear about how they couldn’t do anything, and the same old Muschamp offense, and this and that. They heard it. They heard all that outside noise. They talked about it after the game. I think getting that helped them the rest of the game.

Now, people will say in the second half you get conservative. Yeah, you get conservative. You’re up, 14-0. Then you’re up 20-0. Run the ball. Keep running the ball. You don’t need to score. You don’t need to try to score 70 points and beat South Carolina 70-0. Do what Austin Appleby does well, that’s zone read and setting up the passing game through the running game.

Andrew: The thing is, don’t show anything else of Austin’s book. Show nothing else of Austin’s book. Show the littlest possible. They did. Take the whole game plan into LSU, because you’re going to need it.

Nick: We’ll get into that. Real quick, before we get into some LSU talk, bad week for me with picks.

Andrew: Before we get into picks, Nick, let’s talk defense. Okay? We’ve got to talk defense. Nick, you know what? I’m going to say this, and you can go ahead and call me crazy when I say this. You know how you told me beginning of the year, or I don’t even know what week it was, but you told me one week this year, you said, “Every year I say the defense is going to get worse, and it never does.” Nick, can that same thing be said for Saturday? I know it’s Will Muschamp’s offense, and you can’t talk too much, but 33, David Reese, 28, Kylan Johnson. Those are going to be two mean looking linebackers in the future.

Nick: They are mean. We might not be talking future. They’re mean right now.

Andrew: They are.

Nick: They’re mean right now. To me, yes, Kylan played well. I am impressed with him. He’s playing a new position. He didn’t play this in high school, so that’s impressive. To me, being a freshman and playing middle linebacker, making the calls, and doing all that, the game is so fast for you when you’re a freshman, and then to add that on, that speeds it up even more. So for me, watching the way David Reese played, it didn’t show up, or, no, it did show up for him. He leads the team in tackles with 11, but he’s just around the ball. It’s that kind of like heady instinctual play that reminds you of Antonio Morrison, or reminds me of Antonio Morrison. Might not be the most physically athletically gifted player, but he makes up for it with his instincts and his toughness. He’s just a good football player. If you built a linebacker, that’s the kind of player, an Antonio Morrison type, and that’s what I see in David Reese.

Andrew: Right. See, it’s kind of what I told you with Reese too, and I said this. I said, “Reese is the guy, he’s a lot like Jarrad Davis.” I’m not saying he’s going to be as good as Jarrad Davis. In my opinion, Jarrad Davis will go down as one of the best linebackers to play at the University of Florida. He’s a guy that is coming downhill, and when he comes downhill he is going to make a play, and he also had that toughness of, cut my leg off; I’m not coming out.

Nick: You said it to me yesterday. He looked miserable on the sideline.

Andrew: Jarrad Davis looked miserable. He looked miserable. He looked like, “Can I just go home?” He does not want to be sitting on the sideline in the middle of a football game. You can see that. Also, Nick, I wanted to say this, bring this up as well. Marcell Harris, best football game he’s ever played at the University of Florida was on Saturday.

Nick: Wrote his name down last night.

Andrew: Marcell Harris, best football game of his playing days at the University of Florida on Saturday. Also, I wanted to say this too. Chauncey Gardner, boy, people better be ware of this guy. This guy’s speed is showing up on a field. He’s the first one down on every special teams. Every special teams he’s the first one down.

Nick: That was a huge play on Townsend’s, how long was that punt?

Andrew: That was a 54 yarder I believe.

Nick: I should know this, right?

Andrew: Yes.

Nick: It was 59, and South Carolina brought the heat. I said it out loud, I said, “Oh, they’re coming for it.” Townsend had to rush it, so it wasn’t the highest kick. When you kick it 59 yards, you’re not going to get a ton of hang time, and that’s where Gardner’s speed showed up. To be able to get down, and when you have a low line drive kick, usually it presents itself for an opportunity for…

Andrew: A return.

Nick: For a return. Not when Chauncey Gardner’s going down there, and how many times do you see the first guy down on punt and on kick is moving so fast the guy has to make a tiny move, and they slip, that guy’s done? It’s tough to be running full speed, and to make a play like that, and that changed the game. That goes from a kick that was almost blocked, now set up for a potentially good return, to you’re pinned back in your own side.

Andrew: Yeah. I mean, it was one of those deals where you looked at it, you were like, okay. This is going to be a decent return. You see Chauncey, and Chauncey overruns the play, comes up from behind, and makes a great play. He has that two state championships in track for his speed, and that shows up. One thing I will say though is about Chauncey, and that is he talks the smack, and I will never say that he doesn’t, but the one thing with him is he’ll back it up, and he is not afraid to play special teams. To me, usually the sign of a great player starts with special teams, and that’s what Chauncey’s doing.

Overall, Nick, I just really was, I was really impressed by the way those young guys on defense played. Even Vosean Joseph, outside of that one pass interference, and, I mean, it’s what linebackers do. They’re going to face guard, and it happens, but besides that they played really well. Keivonnis played really well. Joey Ivie played great on Senior Day. That was a really good day for Joey Ivie on Senior Day. Caleb Brantley played well. It really was just a really good team effort for Florida on defense, and a lot of young guys were shown.

Nick: A ton of young guys. Ton of young guys, and that has to help recruiting.

Andrew: Yeah. I mean, it has to help ease some minds too for next year. I mean, it really does have to ease some minds. I mean, when you got guys like David Reese and those guys going, I mean, you’re not going to replace Jarrad Davis. Alex Anzalone, I want to hit on that in second, you’re not going to replace guys like that, but you can do a good job of helping guys come in and start to fill those shoes.

One quick note that I know you and I both wanted to pass along is people were saying, and we know there’s other sites saying, that Alex Anzalone, because he had Senior Day, is leaving. That’s not the case. You and I both were told that it’s still up in the air, and that at times he’s leaning to come back. At times he’s leaning to go pro. He has not made any kind of decision as far as what he’s going to do for next season. He had Senior Day because he graduated, and there is an opportunity he could go, but it’s not been told yet.

Nick: Yeah. He doesn’t need to make that decision. He’ll be able to file paperwork to see where he wants to go. He was allowed to go through Senior Day yesterday because he graduated. Graduating in four years is tough to do nowadays. So I have no problem with that. We talked about not letting juniors do it, and I don’t view Anzalone walking in the same light as if Quincy or Duke or Jalen were to walk. I think that’s different. I think you reward a guy because he graduated, and he’s done what he needs to do in the classroom. Yeah. I’m leaning, I think he should stay, and I think he will say. Not going to report anything about that yet.

Andrew: No reason to talk about that just yet. It just is one of those deals where, and we say it all the time, do your homework. We’ll get into that later. Couple things, Nick, let’s go ahead. We’ll do picks, and we’ll talk a little recruiting at the end. Deal?

Nick: Let’s do it.

Andrew: Okay. Picks. You got your ass kicked this week.

Nick: Not a good week for Nick. Not a good week for, as you would say it, de la Torre.

Andrew: What’s new?

Nick: I picked Kentucky to win. Loss. We both picked Auburn to win. Loss. Both picked Arkansas to win. Loss. I picked Washington to win. Loss.

Andrew: You get a win on that one. I went out on a limb and got David Reese.

Nick: Did you go out on a limb though?

Andrew: Yeah, because he’s a freshman making his first start.

Nick: I thought it was a good pick.

Andrew: I was worried about what would happen. I was a little worried about it, just simply because I thought maybe he would over pursue, try to be over hyped for the game, but he wasn’t. I get that W there.

Nick: You got a W with Quincy Wilson, 9 tackles.

Andrew: Yeah. Then Caleb Brantley, it’s up in the air. I mean, he had a good game. It just doesn’t show in the stats sheet. It just doesn’t. I mean, he has a lot of pressure, that’s the thing, and he’s always in the backfield.

Nick: He gets in the backfield freaky fast at times.

Andrew: Him and Jon Jon Bullard are two of the freakiest guys to get in the backfield. It’s just like, boom, boom. They’re there.

Nick: I would compare him to like an Easley kind of speed.

Andrew: I’m just saying him and Bullard, that was how Bullard was last year where it seemed like every play he was driving his guy into the backfield there. Yeah. Now, let’s go.

Nick: Here we go, I got a couple of these. I didn’t record all of them, but 150 rushing yards, we both bought that. Check it off. I bought Franks gets two drives. I’m catching another L. You sold that.

Andrew: Yeah.

Nick: I did sell that Florida would win the turnover battle, and I win that. Florida had three to South Carolina’s two turnovers.

Andrew: Well, you know. It is. I didn’t expect Mark Thompson to play, so don’t give me the L, give that to Mark Thompson. It’s his fault.

Nick: Let’s get into LSU now.

Andrew: Yeah. Let’s get into LSU. We’re taping this at 1:15 on Sunday. The Gators are #18 in the Coaches Poll, and LSU is a 12.5 point favorite?

Nick: 12.5 point favorite.

Andrew: Yeah. A couple things. LSU hasn’t given up 21 points this year in a game, and have only given up 10 offensive touchdowns this year, and Derrius Guice is already giving poster board material.

Nick: Bulletin board?

Andrew: I called it poster board.

Nick: Well, that’s wrong.

Andrew: I know. The only reason I said that is I’m actually looking at our photo gallery from Sunday, and I see a poster board of somebody talking smack to Will Muschamp. Kind of went on there. Anyway, bulletin board material. He said that Florida can’t run no more. 25, 22, take a look. 24, yeah, he’s right about you.

Nick: He’s right about you.

Andrew: Am I wrong?

Nick: I don’t know why, I honestly don’t know why Mark Thompson’s still getting carries. When you see what Lamical and what Jordan are doing, let’s just cut that rotation in half. Don’t need to give 32 the ball either.

Andrew: No. You’re good without those two. This game is going to be ugly. I really, really think this is a 13-10 football game in Death Valley Saturday.

Nick: Another one.

Andrew: I really think so.

Nick: Another one. You avoid night, which is important at Death Valley, but you’re still looking at a LSU team which is 3rd in the SEC in rushing defense. Florida has showed their hand that that’s what we think we need to be. LSU only gives up 114 yards a game. Alabama’s only giving up 68 rushing yards a game. Lord. LSU only giving up 114 rushing yards a game, and they’ve only given up 5 rushing touchdowns on the year.

Andrew: I mean, Appleby’s got to play ball. Appleby’s got to play ball in the game.

Nick: This might be a game where you’re going to have to ask Austin Appleby to do something to win.

Andrew: You are, and you’re going to go back to the stand pass. You’re going to try to throw the ball a little deeper, and you’re going to get the ball to Callaway in the game. Do that. You’ve got to get your defense going, and you’re going to make Etling beat you. You got to. You don’t let Guice, and you don’t let Fournette beat you. You make the Purdue transfer, yes, there’s another one in this game, beat you, and if he does, then you got to go with the lesser of the two evils. You let Fournette and Guice beat you, and they will. You let Etling beat you, and you got a chance. That’s where it’s going to be.

Here’s my thing. The team, that spark they came out with on Saturday, better bring it again. You’re going for the East. You’re going back to Atlanta. Seniors, juniors that are leaving early, back to back trips to Atlanta hasn’t been done in a while. You want that trip? Go earn it.

Nick: You don’t want to get into a situation where you lose to LSU, and now you’re waiting two weeks to see if Vanderbilt can take care of business against Tennessee. You don’t want to get into that situation. I think Florida needs to go into LSU, Florida also hasn’t won a game against an SEC opponent on the road since 2012. Jonathan, football, Manziel, first game at Texas A&M. You’ve got something to prove here. The East is being dominated by the West. That’s probably, like Jim McElwain said, that’s up to Florida. Florida’s one of the perennial powers in the East. The West is better than the East, that’s up to Florida to fix. You can’t do that if you’re not winning some of these games on the road. To go four years without winning an SEC road, I know you’re only getting one a year, but to go four years without winning an SEC game against a West opponent on the road, that can’t happen at a school like Florida.

I’m worried about what, I’m worried about Austin Appleby in the sense of we’ve seen him, he talked about it at Purdue, he can get into a mode where he’s trying to do too much, and we saw some of that in the second half against Tennessee where he starts running around and trying to fit passes in. We saw that against Vanderbilt a little bit.

Andrew: Can’t do that.

Nick: Yeah. So when I say that I’m worried about Austin Appleby, it’s from the sense of also where I said, “You’re probably going to ask him to go do something to win you the game.” And does he take that and maybe take that too far?

Andrew: That’s the thing. You can’t let it, you can’t go too much. You’ve got to go with, okay, I’m going to go out, do my job, without trying to do too much. You can’t do the job for 11 guys. You’ve got to do your job. I think that’s where it comes in, and the thing that I think will be key this week is I think the staff. Nick, you and I were told last year that that was the best game plan that Mac had all year for the LSU game. You need that plan again. I mean, to be fair, as bad as it was last year, Florida should have won that game, really their two defensive mistakes away from holding them to 14 points. Then also a fake field goal.

Nick: Man. I wonder if Coach O’s got some of that chalked up ready to go.

Andrew: Maybe.

Nick: Some of that Les Miles voodoo.

Andrew: Maybe.

Nick: What is the key to the game? LSU will be ranked ahead of Florida, on top of being that 12 point favorite. LSU is 14, Florida’s 18 in the Coaches Poll.

Andrew: It’s line of scrimmage. Once again, it’s that line of scrimmage, and if you can win the line of scrimmage, you’ll be okay. I think that’s the thing. I’m going to say this again, Nick. I mean, we shouldn’t be saying this, but we are. It’s the energy Florida arrives at the stadium with. If Florida arrives at the stadium with energy and a spark, they’re okay. They’re okay. But when they arrive dead to the wall, sleepwalking, it just, you can’t. You can’t. I tell you this, if they arrive sleeping this week, they’ll be down 21-0 before they can blink their eye, and it’ll be over with. You cannot arrive at the stadium exhausted, sleepwalking, anything like that.

Andrew: Peter Burns is one of the SEC Network, an analyst, and he tweeted last night. He said, “Having Derrius Guice to hand off to when Leonard Fournette is on the sidelines is like a man driving a Maserati with his Ferrari in the shop.” I’m sitting here thinking, “That’s pretty accurate here.” It’s like, I broke down my fancy car, but I’m just going to get a even more fancier car. Kind of crazy that that’s the way it is. It’s what happens at LSU. When you’ve got right now those two guys, it’s like I said, you’ve got to make the passing game beat you and not let the running game beat you.

Nick: Yeah. You start to worry about it because of the injuries.

Andrew: Right. Yeah. That’s what I was going to say. I was watching SEC Network a little bit, and Chris Doering was talking about it. He said the X factor in the game was none other than David Reese. He said, “If Reese has a good game at middle linebacker, they’re okay.” I do kind of what to know what Jarrad Davis does. Is he sitting again next week? I’m not sure of where that is. Be nice if he could play and you could pair him with Reese, and the two guys go toe to toe and really step up there. So we’ll see that. We do expect Tyler Jordan to play next week. Looked like he could have came back into the game against South Carolina, but, like you said, they were up big. No need to risk that at all. Not sure the status of David Sharpe though. After the game he didn’t have a boot on his foot, but he did during the game.

Nick: That’s a little weird to me. Maybe, if it’s not serious I don’t know why you wouldn’t be able to come back out in clothes, in your uniform. If it’s not serious, I don’t know why you would be in a boot, and if it’s serious, I don’t know why you’d leave the place, leave the stadium, not in a boot. That will be interesting. We’ll see what Mac says about that on Monday.

Andrew: Yeah.

Nick: Florida’s going to have their hands full stopping this running attack. I think I get to pick players first.

Andrew: Oh no. You picked them last week, and that was Jordan Scarlett.

Nick: You’re probably going to end up picking Reese. That’s going to be the kind of game it is. It’s going to be David Reese. It’s going to be Kylan Johnson.

Andrew: Joey Ivie.

Nick: Daniel McMillian, Joey Ivie. Daniel McMillian.

Andrew: We’re not even talking about him, so stop.

Nick: Listen, you’re going to need him next week. You’re going to be playing 4-3. You’re not going to be playing your 4-2 nickel. You’re going to need three linebackers next week.

Andrew: Oh well. I don’t understand his comments. To me, that’s selfish football player, making comments like that in the middle of the season, before next week, and if you don’t know what his comments were, he said something along the lines of, “I feel like I would have played more had I went somewhere else.” Well, you didn’t. You made that decision. You chose Willy Muschamp, and it’s also not Florida’s fault that you have become very out of shape, and it’s also not their problem that you can’t play in pass coverage.

Nick: Some issues learning that playbook as well.

Andrew: Yeah. So there it is. Nick, let’s talk a little recruiting. It was a monster. When I say monster weekend, it was a who’s who of prospects in town for the game. That’s credit to Drew Hughes and his staff. It was a noon kick, and he had some, he had all of his big name targets basically in town. That was props to him. Alex Leatherwood was in town for three days, and things are really moving there. He’s a guy that, once again, if he comes in at left tackle and picks Florida, you’re a better football team the day he signs. You had Navaughn Donaldson, Miami commit, offensive lineman, in town. So far, as of 1:00, I haven’t been able to speak to him, because he hasn’t left his official, but from what I was told was that he was having a good trip.

You had, I’m trying to think of all the big name guys that were in town. Trey Bishop, the Auburn commit that’s a safety, coming into town, and now he wants to play safety. So it looks like Florida’s good there. It was overall it was just a really good weekend. The noon kick, the atmosphere was much better than I thought it would be. Senior Day was good. You had a good game offensively and defensively, so it was a good time. It was a good trip, and it set the momentum up to go into what I call the off season, bowl prep, whatever you want to call it.

Nick: Noon might not be a good kickoff time as far as atmosphere, or not optimal, because of atmosphere, but tell people what it means as far as from a recruiting standpoint and what it means for the coaches and the visits themselves.

Andrew: Yeah. It doesn’t force them to rush things. They were able to spend a little more time with Leatherwood and those guys there, and they were able to spend more time with the official visitors. They were able to go to dinner with those guys last night, Saturday night, excuse me, and do that. So they were able to spend more time with the players. It wasn’t a rush job. If it’s at 7:00, by the time the game’s over with at 11:00 everybody’s trying to leave. So you may get to spend two minutes with them. For the majority of those guys, they spent an hour after the game with their area recruiter and their future position coach maybe. So that was what I was saying in that they get more time. It’s not a rush job.

Nick: Sometimes that can be key. Sometimes that can be important, more so than seeing a great atmosphere. I think people know what Florida is and what Florida could be.

Andrew: Agreed. Agreed. Exactly. Alright, Nick, a couple things. So basketball’s going on. Baileigh’s doing a good job with basketball. We’ll have plenty of stuff from Baton Rouge, as we’re going to be in Baton Rouge this weekend. We’ll have tons of recruiting coverage this week from the big weekend, and be ready to preview this game. A lot of good things going on. If you haven’t come over to join us yet, let us know. Our site is almost finished. We went injury free this weekend, so that was good. Things are starting to get better. If you haven’t joined us yet, come check us out, and let us know. We’ll hook you up with a good little deal.

Nick: As always, www.GatorCountry.com for all your Florida Gator news. The podcast transcript is there Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 5:00AM sharp. Also, subscribe on iTunes. Never miss a podcast. Subscribe on iTunes, and they will pop up there. You can follow us on social media. At Facebook, @GatorCountry. On Twitter, @GatorCountry. You can follow me, @NickdelaTorreGC. You can follow Andrew, @AndrewSpiveyGC. Check us out on Instagram as well, @TheGatorCountry on Instagram, and @NickdelaTorre on Instagram.

Andrew: Yeah. Nick, I think I speak for both of us when I say that the love that our podcast has been getting from people has been awesome. We really appreciate it, from everyone. Everyone that see us and says, “What’s up?” We really appreciate it. We do it for fun, but you always like to hear how good it is.

Nick: What is, tell everyone what happened yesterday.

Andrew: No, we won’t talk about that just yet. We’ll talk about that later. We’ll do a good segment later on some of the cool things this year. Let’s save it for the end of the year.

Nick: Okay.

Andrew: Sound like a win?

Nick: Yeah. That’s all we got then for today.

Andrew: That sounds good. Alright, Nick, we’ll see everyone on Wednesday. I don’t know. We won’t go Ross Dellenger, since we already had him. We’ll try to find someone else from Baton Rouge.

Nick: Oh. Okay.

Andrew: Or we can go Ross. You want to go Ross again?

Nick: Doesn’t matter.

Andrew: We’ll decide. We’ll surprise everyone. Sound like a winner. Make sure to check us out and let us know. As always, chomp, chomp. Go Braves. Butch, Mark, you still suck, even though you won this week.

Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.

1 COMMENT

Just played one half of football, and already among the cream of the crop of SEC QBs – true freshman Shea Patterson of Ole Miss.

Facing a 21-6, fourth-quarter deficit, Patterson led three touchdown drives and a game-winning field goal drive to push the Rebels past No. 8 Texas A&M at Kyle Field. The true freshman threw for 338 yards and 2 touchdowns, while running for 64 yards — not bad for his first college football game.

GC Instagram

Since 1997 Gator Country's been the most trusted authority on all Florida Gators sports. Join the most active Gators forums and get the real inside scoop on Florida football, recruiting, basketball, baseball and all University of Florida athletics!